[Closed] Adventures - summer hols are here edition

Alternative to Lake Garda we arrived in Wales Friday night and had a couple of days walking around Llangollen which hasn't changed that much since we were last here with the girls about 20 years ago.

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Moved further West today as we have an uplift booked for tomorrow at Antur Stiniog, Abigale has wangled a couple of days off work so is on her way to join us and hopefully be on hand with some tips 😎. Forecast is fo rain.

Rest of the week will be a mixture of riding and walking

Uplift day for us, rain never arrived so the trails were dry and it was T shirt weather.

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A fine evening by bike and foot.

Ben Lomond in a great mood as an after work walk.

It seems that every year I hesitate to do bigger days out. I think it's that my mileage is cut during the winter and, as spring can drag up here, it takes until half-way through the year that I start to feel confident enough to do the bigger rides. With that in mind I had resolved to repeat a two-day route I'd done previously, but in a single day. It's mostly "gravel" of one form or another so the Amazon was chosen.

I set off just after 9am from Dalwhinnie, already worried that I should have been a lot earlier. It was a cold start but by the time I'd reached Loch Pattack the saun had put in an appearance and my work rate was warming me up. From here I'd normally ride along Lochan na h-Earba but the bridge at the SW end is currently being replaced so I rode alongside Loch Laggan for a change. I've not been this way for a long time so was very pleasantly surprised.

After that, it's the climb to Corrour Station for the only catering stop on the route.

Quite a few other cyclists here as it's on the Badger Divide/ An Turas Mor routes, the former of which seems to have become very, very popular.

Loch Ossian looking as lovely as ever

After this it's the big climb up to the old Lodge for the view out west and then the drop down to Loch Rannoch which was very calm.

Massive number of tents on the lochside along here, doing the wild/dirty camper thing. I can't imagine it's very pleasant as they are almost on top of each other. And yet, I can sort of understand it. There are no campsites close, it's a stunning area, it's the school holidays and travel is restricted. I could almost ignore/forgive it all if not for the pall of woodsmoke over the area.

After a while on tarmac, it's the big climb of the day, up to Duinish bothy.

For those not in the know, that pointy hill in the background is Schiehallion (the fairy hill of the Caledons) and is where contour lines were "invented" as Sir Nevile Maskelyne set out to estimate the density of the Earth.

The one boggy bit of the day is at the head of Loch Garry but it's only about 1.5km and, even though some of that is ridable, I was looking forward to getting back onto the lochside track. However, it's been "repaired" with some massive boulders and was a really rough journey. The billiard-table tarmac of NCN7 running alongside the A9 was therefore very welcome 😀

124km in 7h20m moving time. Not too bad given my expectations. However, I need a plan for next winter, keeping up with some long rides regardless of the weather and (more importantly) ground/road conditions. Maybe I should emigrate south for a few months!

I've walked that loop a few times for DofE - time to pull the bike out for it...

I've been doing lots of local road riding but nothing really planned- this thread title has reminded me to plan a mini adventure or trip out for something new soon.

Might just start with a road ride to Blackpool, been meaning to tick that one off for a while.

Not much planned for this year but we are starting to dust off the itinerary we had booked for 2020 in the hope of resurrecting for 2022 - roadtrip (with bikes) through Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.

Just back from a blue sky, midge free trip to Skye. Was all awesome but, best of all, managed to fulfil a long ambition by getting over to St Kilda for the day. It was magical, proper trip of a lifetime stuff. We had perfect conditions which was helpful given we spent 8 hours on the boat getting there and back!

I might even have been inspired enough to try and work out how to post photos, although they will not do it justice.

St Kilda is on our 'must do one day' list...

St Kilda is on our ‘must do one day’ list…

It was on mine and it is so much better than I ever imagined. But you might want to allocate more than one day. The skipper said he took a couple recently on their twelfth attempt, all the others had been binned due to weather.

We lucked out as we went first time and got clear blue skies. I'm not sure what would be worse, cancellations or pushing on in 2m swell (they have a lot of sick bags available)

Purchased a Restrap bar bag yesterday and spent a happy evening trying different bits of kit in it (our MSR tent fits, with space, whoop!). I'm still struggling with significant exercise due to long COVID, but we plan to do some shortish bikepacking trips where the focus is going to be on the journey and views, not the miles.

@ahsat - which MSR is it?

@ElShalimo MSR Hubba Hubba NX. We do have a tiny Terra Nova, but the MSR is far more useable for the two of us and allowing for weather/midges.

Thanks, we're looking for a new small tent for bike/back-packing.

Spend today walking, caught a bit of sun. It was hard to keep Fin out of the water

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Just got back in time to put a pizza in the oven and watch the game.

The first Peroni went down well

👍

Sorry- no photos.

50km chilled ride on the Ryvoan/Nethy loop with metalheart, interrupted by a hotdog at Nethy House cafe. The air was amazing - hot, tinged with pine needle dust. Truly amazing.

Then quickly rushed off to swim around Lochindorb Castle. That was about 1km which is the longest open-water swim I've ever done.

Mini adventure inspired by scotroutes and others. I grabbed my daughters tent and my heavy thirty year old mountain equipment sleeping bag for a overnight school night camp near a trig point above Orton.

Sunset

Sunrise

Nice early morning commute

@scotroutes isn't there a forestry campsite at Loch Rannoch? I remember staying at it about 10 years ago and getting eaten alive by midgies. Mind you I suppose it defeats the point of them "wild" camping doesn't it.

@ElShalimo - only comment is its partly mesh inner, which means its light, but maybe not so ideal for when its really damp (after all it is built for the largely drier USA climate)! The condensation does drip through after a bit, compared to a fabric inner. We also bought it for bike/back-packing and very pleased to see the pole's allowed it to fit in a bar bag dry bag.

Thanks, we've got a lightly used TN Voyager XL which is great but the pack size is surprisingly large

I've been to St Kilda 3 times,It's a great place, the pub had a real edge of the world feel though sadly it got closed long ago. Magical place to visit if the weather let's you.

This morning, 05:30.
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My plan is to work my nuts off over the summer, squeezing in hit'n'run overnighters like this to avoid the crowds, then have a 'proper' holiday in the autumn.

Fabulous inversion montgomery, where is it?

That is an absolute belter

the pub had a real edge of the world feel though sadly it got closed long ago

They were ripping the foundations out by digger when we were there at the weekend. The new building look really good though.

The rain that was forecast never materialised and woke up to clear sky's.

Last time we rode at Coed Y Brenin was at the Fat Tyre festival just after the foot and mouth outbreak. Abigale was on a Trailgator and I remember pulling her round the Red Bull trail.

Alot has changed since then but nice to go back and reminisce.

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Last day in Wales, tomorrow we move on to the Malverns to see what's on offer

@tracey - what glasses are those? Look like they’ve got good coverage.

Oh yes, I'm enjoying seeing people's adventures... Keep it up. 👍

Oakley Jawbreakers with Prizm clear lenses

@montgomery amazing pictures.

Had a morning at Flyup 417 which was about 30 mins away so though we would give it a try. Went for the pedal up on the Levo and managed 12 runs in the 2 hours we were there. Could have stayed longer but wanted to do some walking as well as tomorrow's forecast is for rain.

Couldn't have asked for a better weeks weather

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Family time in Orkney

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That water! We're off to Harris & Lewis today.

*Does a little dance*

.....bumps Orkney up the visit soon list....

Glitched

A day of two halves.

Wetter than an otters pocket and sunburnt on the same day.

Looks like your having a good time, we managed to avoid the rain. It rained overnight on Friday and Saturday.
Travelled home today in glorious sunshine, managed to get unloaded and packed away before the thunderstorms hit and its still raining

Had a cheeky wee weekend on mull last weekend, rearranged from last may, really just to get Ben More ticked off!

https://flic.kr/p/2m9k81f

Shooting up to somewhere around bridge of orchy tonight for a night in the wee van, early start to tick off another couple tomorrow.

A few from Thursday, the last day of sun before the rain came...

I'll just leave these here and a link below.

https://2rhenigidale.co.uk/deal/the-postmans-path/?fbclid=IwAR0EUEc1r8DjIUOEOgZ1rBhML9uvhBTvVRslTeCyl40t4TBYTAc9wcYLOqE

Looks like you had a cracking ride.

Had nothing but rain since we got home.

Keep the good weather going for when we come up next week for the Vallelujah

I've just looked as we're in Torridon next week - wet. 🤨